Happy halloween! For this joyous occasion I’ve prepared a healthy serving of five painted ghouls for your perusal. They were supposed to be used in a Stillburg scenario I had planned to play a few weeks ago – but we ended up getting rather inebriated instead of actually playing any games. Those things happen, I suppose.

I was in a bit of a rush to finish them, which actually doesn’t show except on the Talisman ghoul in the back (more on that later). I wanted them to look pale and tomb-dwelling, which I think I achieved. They were painted with Vallejo Pale Flesh over a white undercoat, then washed with purple and blue washes, highlighted up with layers of Pale Flesh and Skull White and then washed again. Did the eyes reddish, to add some contrast to the models.

As I mentioned a while ago I had an evening of Heroquest gaming, and wanted to finish up as many Heroquest models as possible before that. Here are a couple of close ups of the chaos warriors and mummies.

In the interest of fast completion, I didn’t use the actual Heroquest chaos warriors (as it would’ve involved cutting off the integral base) but instead painted up four rather similar 90s plastic chaos warriors. Once I have an otherwise full set of Heroquest models painted up, I’ll replace these with the proper models and do them in the signature coloured armour of the late 80s and early 90s.

The mummies are proper Heroquest mummies though. Fastest paintjobs I’ve ever done, I think. They were spray primed Skull White, then base coated in Bleached Bone with the “flesh” parts picked out with Vallejo Cold Grey. I then drybrushed the wrappings with Skulle White. Once dry, the whole model was washed with Devlan Mud and the Cold Grey was highlighted by mixing in Dehneb Stone. They were finished in an evening, while I also did the base coats on the chaos warriors above.

Highly unassuming models, but a great satisfaction to get some stuff painted really quickly! I will try to do a unit of the chaos warriors for my plastic Warhammer project before the end of the year.

My painted total for 2013 is now 25. 10 more weeks, and less than 30 models to go. Will I make it? I highly doubt it, unless I resort to cheap tricks and underhanded tactics. That would be completely foreign to me. Forsooth.

Edit:
Here’s a photo of the zombies I had done since earlier. That’s all the currently painted stuff. 60 models or so to go for a full set of the base game + two expansions released in Swedish.

I don’t know about you, but I have never felt any love for dark elves in any setting I ever played a game in. The same applies to the WHFB figures for dark elves, I’ve never seen anything I really like. They always felt a bit daft and contrived. So – what to do with the handful of dark elves I’ve happened to collect over the last few years? Well, I had Mengil Manhide’s regiment of renown painted up for me by Pil. While enough to run a warband in SOBH, they’re a rather homogenous lot. I figured they could use some bolstering by another batch. So I scooped up all my remaining dark elves and shipped them off to JollyBob (from LAF/Frothers/etc) for painting.

The orcs soon realized they were biting off more than they could chew.

He did a great job, but I’m not sure they’ll see much table time. This post have been prepared for almost a year but I haven’t been able to post it as I could not, for the life of me, come up with any fluff and background. Especially the names caused me problems. I think it all boils down to how humourless and bleak the Warhammer fluff for dark elves is. They’re like the dark, brooding and pretentious teenagers of the Old World.

In large, these are the remnants of a raiding party that set out from Naggaroth, consisting of two ships. After looting and pillaging successfully eastward through the northern parts of the Empire, they ran into stiff competition near the Northern Wastes and the coven was decimated by a much larger chaos regiment.

Captain Neviro second from the left, with his aide to the left and to the right his son Malus and daughter Debelia. All of them C09 Dark Elves by Bob Naismith, anno 1986 (except for the captain who is an earlier release, from 1985).

The two ship’s captains blame each other for the fatal defeat, while Lidygia takes perverse pleasure in playing the two against each other skillfully manipulating their passion for her and their rivalry. They realize they need to stay together to reach the shores where their ships lie berthed, thus they reluctantly cooperate. Before they reach their ships, blood will certainly be spilled.

In June, I decided to quickly paint up a set of Harboth’s Black Mountain Boys (an early Regiment of Renown) – and promptly disappeared off the face of the planet for the duration of the summer. Oh well. Stuff like that happens. Now I’m back, partly fuelled by Erny’s post over at Erny’s Place from the other day.

“Pulp the stunties!”

8 out of 10 boys are done, and the command (sans musician, who needs to be stripped) are half done. I needed 8 orcs for a game of Hero Quest this weekend though. More on that in a separate post.

I aim to post more orcs for Orctober. It’s a good cause, after all. Then we have Goblinovember next month. I’ve got something prepared for that too. Yay me!

Update: Forgot to up the tally! These guys increase my painted total for 2013 from 11 to 19! And it’s only week 41! 11 more weeks, and almost 40 models to do. Yikes, I’ll have to bring out the snotlings!

Finally finished the first 11 chaps for my Blood Bowl Chaos team, with the addition of another four beastmen. Once again, I did the skin and fur in unique shades and I’m hoping to have all 11 beastmen in slightly different tones when the whole team is done. While the models are rather dull, they paint up easily. This brings my painted total for 2013 up to an astounding… 11! Yes. I’m definitely behind on my plan to paint one model a week. Need to do more painting and posting to bring the total up!

Beastmen. Yup… Still struggling with the focus, sorry about the fuzzy photo.

Here’s the whole gang, as they are now. I realized after taking the photos that I had forgotten to paint the numbers on the shoulder pads of the four new additions. Still haven’t figured out how to get proper depth of focus on my camera while also getting the light sensitivity and exposure I’d like. Hence the slightly out of focus Chaos Warriors. I’m sure you’ll manage though.

“Young man, there’s no need to feel down!”

I have also been working (a little) on the Harboth’s Black Mountain Boys that I’m doing for the end of July painting challenge over at the Oldhammer forums. Base coat of flesh done on them all. Quite some way to go yet, but the troopers should be rather quick affairs. Nice models though. Too bad my champion is so poorly cast that it can not possibly be a legit cast. I did pay £10-£15 for him so it smarts a bit. Didn’t look too closely upon reception and now a few years later it’s not really time to open a case with eBay. Oh well, I’ll paint him up!